So an immortal Shaman, backstabbing brother, and a predictable ‘bad guy’ boyfriend walk into a bar. No, That’s not the start of a bad joke…this is episode twenty of Arrow Season four in a nutshell.

Fight the Dahrkness
Oliver tells the team that John Constantine finally got back to him and made a suggestion on who to speak to about counteracting Damien Dahrk’s magic. He plans on traveling alone to Hub City, however Felicity insists on going with him. Her card counting skills come into play whenever they go to the biggest underground casino in the city, where they end up meeting Esrin Fortuna who is an immortal Shaman. She explains that in order to repel the darkness you need to use the light; something that Oliver himself has struggled to find for a very long time.

Oliver’s “training” consists of Fortuna sending two dark bursts of magic to Oliver. In the second he is faced with his previous fights against villains, and the deaths of those he was unable to protect in previous seasons. This is the “darkness” within Oliver, and unfortunately for him to counteract Dahrk’s power he has to find the light inside himself again. After a mini-speech from Felicty later we see that Oliver is successful in repelling Dahrk’s magic, showing that he can indeed find a light in the Dahrk (Har Har, I know it’s a corny comment but I need to amuse myself somehow!)

Brother against Brother
The final showdown between John and Andy has finally reached it’s melting point. Once again John is unable to kill Andy, even after he’s been “prepped” by his brother for Dahrk. As expected, once again this was another show put on by Andy and in the end the real target was Lyla to compleate the last part of his plan; obtaining access to Rubicon.

After planting a tracker on John they are able to locate the safehouse truck. Once again John is faced with protecting his family against his brother and Dahrk. Lyla begs him to take their daughter Sara and run while she stays behind. After passing off his daughter to Felicty, John then goes off to face his brother.

After being taunted once again he finally snaps, killing his brother suddenly with a gunshot to the chest. We see John slip further into darkness, and he even lies to his wife about how it happened. Could this be the start of a change in John for the worse?

Under the Dome
I had a bad feeling after Canary Cry that Thea’s boyfriend once again isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. After taking a supposed “vacation” Thea finds herself in a quaint town with Alex where she starts to notice several oddities. The sun doesn’t go down, the audio is on loop, and things seem far too ‘perfect’. Whether or not he’s aware that Ruve Adams is playing him or if he’s a part of Malcom’s scheme to get Thea to safety has yet to be seen, but Thea really needs to start making better choices in men. At the end of the episode we see Thea running away from Dahrk’s soldiers, and right into a holographic wall.

I am a fan of Arrow, but after watching last night’s episode I feel as if the show has fallen into a predictable, lazy phase. Perhaps the title of “Genesis” gave me too many expectations that weren’t met. Instead of undersigning what exactly project Genesis is we were given an episode that felt more like filler. With only three episodes remaining I have a bad feeling that the story will be rushed and nonsensical, a feeling that I hope is wrong.